The History of China - #225 - Special - Strange Tales VI: Notes From the Shadow Book

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Our annual creepy charcuterie of 4 strange stories from all across Qing China, collected by Ji Yun from Beijing all the way to Urumqi. Today, we have 4 tales to send shivers down your spine: 1) "Professional Notes on the Jiangshi & Other Revenants" (begins @ 2:50) 2) "Checkpoints" (begins @ 19:44) 3) "Yeti Stones" (begins @ 28:43) 4) "Visitors From Beyond" (begins @ 34:37) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast. Hello and welcome to the History of China.

Episode 225, Strange Tales 6, Notes from the Shadow Book. Hello again. After a few suitably scrumptious hors d'oeuvres, I'm happy to say it's once again time for this October's main course of suitably strange Chinese stories that will leave your bones chilled, your eyebrows arched, and your hair raised. Our set of four such tales today comes from the writings of the Qing-era imperial librarian Ji Yun, whose life was contemporary with the likes of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Marquis de Lafayette, just to name a few. Over the course of his long and wending career, Ji Yun served as a member of the prestigious Hanlin Academy, an institution that had served since the Tang Dynasty as something like the ultimate imperial brain trust of the best and brightest minds China had on offer.

Yet his career path was neither usual nor unblemished by controversy. In 1768, having become an accessory to a bribery case against his then-brother-in-law, Ji Yun was banished from the capital and exiled to far-off Arumqi, Xinjiang, for nearly three years before finally being allowed to return to the east in 1771. Long a collector of interesting and weird tales, it was actually only in the twilight of his life that he began writing them down in what would become, probably very much to his own confusion and bemusement had he known, one of his most enduring legacies, a collection of the bizarre, the strange, and the supernatural that he called the 幽微草堂筆記, meaning detailed notes examining curious minutiae

as written from my little thatched cottage. Written over the course of the subsequent nine years and divided into five total volumes, the Yuei's Haotang Biji, or as it has come to be known in English, the Shadow Book of Ji Yun, compiles in all more than 1,200 tales of the strange. Each and every one of which, in the greatest of storyteller traditions, Ji Yun solemnly swears to be completely and totally true. Today, then, we'll take just a smattering of the tales on offer. Four tales of the weird and wild, running the gamut of mountainous monsters to unquiet spirits, and even encounters from beyond the stars.

But in our first tale today, we sit down with the old librarian as he recounts in exacting detail and scientific rigor the various states of decomposition a body can undergo, at least if we're talking about a very unusual type of body. Beginning with the startling but largely harmless instance of skinless Taoist monks, we'll swiftly be told a tale of terror about that most vile and deadly of vitality challenged across Chinese lore. So listen up and pay close attention before you attempt to brave the darkness of the night, because you're being offered professional notes on the Jiang Shi and other revenants. 1. Exhumation

Though rare, it is understood that on occasion, a practicing Taoist may dig himself out of the grave and be found to have no skin. This is to be expected, as it has rotted away. Curiously, the internal organs are still plump and whole, and, aside from the skin, all other bodily functions resume and behave normally. This occurs when the practitioner has properly cultivated the three treasures of essence, breath, and spirit, to such a great extent that they can enter a prodigious trance. In such a state of coma, life functions are all but suspended, and even their heart slows to just a whisper. They can remain in such a state of suspension for a period of years, even if buried, as though their coffin had been filled with a

preservative such as mercury. This is known wisdom. 2. Treason Though I have not personally witnessed this Taoist miracle of inner alchemy, my trusted friend, Dong Chu Jiang, has informed me that, much like the earthly remains of holy men and saints, so too are often preserved the corpses of their opposite caste, criminals. For example, Dong's neighbor told him that he saw the body of the famous literary Lu Liu Liang, exhumed from his grave some fifty years after he met his end in Zhejiang. This was done in order to carry out a posthumous cremation of his bones as part of a sentence against him for inspiring, via his writings, thought's treason to the realm about returning

China to the rule of the long-ousted Ming. Yet when Liu's remains were disinterred, it was not desiccated bones and rotted flesh, but him, whole, complete, and as if alive, as if the gods themselves had turned him away from the gates of the afterlife. Shocked as they were, the emperor's men hesitated to consign such a body to the flames straight away. Instead, they drew their blades and set to work on the flesh. Blood poured from each wound afresh, trickling down over his motionless body. Yet everyone there had the distinct impression that Liu Luoyang was somehow still alive, totally unable to move, and yet feeling everything. 3. Imbalance

Neither of these first two forms of strange post-mortem preservations should be understood as particularly dangerous. After all, Taoists, though their skinless appearance is certainly shocking, in their nature mean no ill will towards anyone. And as for the criminals, even if it's true that they remain trapped in their own bodies to suffer anew, they can do nothing to anyone. Rather, we turn now to other, more troubling cases of far more vicious beings. Those creatures of the night, for example, that we call the Jiangshi. Much study has been done on the nature of these abominations, and here is what we know and understand. The creatures known as Jiangshi are the undead,

living corpses who seek to inflict harm on the living in order to sustain their own unnatural grasp on existence and empower their dark essences. They are best known for feeding directly off of an unsuspecting victim's qi, or life essence, though the more feral among them have been known at times to not stop there. There are reported cases of them even directly feeding on the flesh and blood of the living as well. There are two major types, or species, of Jiangshi. The lesser type can result when a freshly dead body is left without performing proper burial rites. In such cases, the body may rise and seek, quite violently, if rather dumbly and blindly, sustenance from any living entities nearby. Fortunately, they are rather easily dispatched by someone with even a

basic understanding of the principles involved. They cling to their unlife only tenuously, and like a guttering flame that may be snuffed out by depriving it of air, they will almost always permanently revert to their dead and inanimate state upon being placed in a coffin. Far more care must be taken with the second type of this creature, the greater Jiangshi, which is far more dangerous than its lesser brethren. As before, they are corpses, but they are not freshly dead. With them, at some point in the past, all proper care was given to the rituals and burial, and they were interred into their coffin properly.

Yet at some point, outside forces intervened to reanimate them. These may include such methods as a dark magical spell, a rogue bolt of lightning, or even a pregnant cat walking atop their grave. Though returned, they are not at all as they were in life. Their repose in the grave has rotted not only their flesh, but their thoughts and emotions as well. They have turned truly feral, while physically their bodies have twisted into shapes and forms monstrous beyond reckoning. If freed from their graves, they pose a dire threat to all around them, and will spread terror, carnage, and death wherever they roam. They will drain all life from their victims, leaving them empty husks, and worse yet, liable to themselves of being infected with the Jiangsha curse, and soon to rise again.

Perverse and destructive as they are, worse yet, the remains in these horrid creatures some spark of remaining intellect and complexity, making them all the more dangerous to the unwary. They will often seem to remember and focus on old friends and family of theirs in life, albeit now bent on a terrible reunification in undeath by making them all like itself. As an example, in the Zibuyu, the Tales Forbidden by Master Confucius, Chronicler of the Strange, Yuan Mei, wrote of a government official who, whilst on a nightly stroll, encountered a friend of his, whom he knew to be long dead. Remembering his Confucian training, the official kept his emotions steady and betrayed no hint of surprise or fear at the

abomination that stood before him, behaving in spite of himself as though it were the most natural thing in the world to come across a long-dead friend in the middle of the night. The creature itself cycled through an array of extreme emotions. Though he was famously quiet and reserved in life, he now was at first chatty with his long-lost friend, then overly gracious and thankful, before quickly falling into a deep state of depression. At which point, it launched itself at the official with an inhuman speed and energy, snarling and biting at the man, trying with all its power and strength to sink its teeth into the official's flesh. 4. Hun and Po I have been told many such stories of such instances, and confess it is difficult to

make much sense of them or their validity. It is well understood that in the normal course of life, once death occurs, the person's spirit or life essence departs the mortal shell, just as smoke escapes from a flame that is guttered out. Thus, how could there be energy enough left within the body to arouse it to attack and strangle others? Even more perplexing is the state of moral change to those deceased who undergo such an unfortunate transformation after death. Why should it be that a person who their entire life was virtuous and morally upright in death suddenly turned to evil and violence, so black of mind and heart that they would seek out their own beloved family members to murder? Fortunately, Yuan Mei is once again here to help us achieve some level of understanding,

explaining to us that, in fact, human beings possess two separate aspects of the soul. There is first the bestial po spirit, which drives the body and its more basal appetites. And second, there is the heavenly hun, which carries and upholds the refined thoughts and virtuous emotions we have throughout our lives. In the normal balance of life, the Hun firmly controls the Po, reigning it in and moderating its primal wildness. But upon death, the Hun, like the smoke escaping the flame, rises to the heavens to achieve either reincarnation or to explore the other realms of heavenly existence. As for the Po, in time, it dissolves and is reverted back into the earth from whence it came. That is the way things are supposed to be. But sometimes, the pole refuses to fade away, instead wildly and witlessly clinging to its rotting shell,

and using it in an attempt to cling to existence, and to leech the energies from others to achieve that end. Yuan Mei warns that while in such a state, such atrocities are extremely dangerous and nigh unkillable, being as they are already dead, by any except the most learned and powerful of magicians applying specific rituals and spells against it. Such analyses hold elements of truth, though not the whole of it. It is true, for instance, that the Jiangshi are known to show stray bits of the memories of their former lives, or retain some of the former person's habits and affectations. Yet, in the end, I find myself far more persuaded by the view that it cannot be the poor spirit that reanimates the corpse. Rather, it seems to me that the body must have been chanced upon and taken up

as residence by a non-human entity or wandering spirit, snatching it up like a criminal might lift a club or a child a puppet. 5. The Mysterious Doctor Who When I was still a small child, perhaps six or seven, my father had a friend named Doctor Hu Gongshan. Now, Doctor Who was very reserved about just about every aspect of his life, and so naturally, rumors swirled. The most popular was that once upon a time, he'd gone by the name Jin and served

as a part of Wu Sangui's army that rebelled against the Qing Emperor. Upon Wu's death and defeat, Jin had gone into hiding to escape punishment and therefore changed his name to Hu. Of course, as with most rumors, this one lacked a shred of evidence to support it, though Dr. Hu, strangely enough, would pointedly neither confirm nor deny it. What was clear to all, though, was that he was an extremely skilled martial artist and would surely have been an invaluable member of an army in his heyday. Even well into his 80s, he remained limber and quick as a monkey. Once, a group of bandits spied him in his small sailboat.

Expecting a helpless old man, they descended upon him. Yet Hu snatched up his favorite long-stemmed smoking pipe and proceeded to whip it about his head with a master's precision, repeatedly jabbing his pointed end into his attacker's eyes and nostrils to devastating effect. Brave as he was when fighting against those hapless bandits, Dr. Hu was not entirely fearless. For as soon as the sun set and the moon rose in the night sky, he would shrink and tremble like a leaf at every wail of the wind

or flickering shadow in the candlelight. On such nights, he would scurry home as quickly as he could and lock himself within, refusing by all means to come out until the sun was high in the sky the next morning. When I first became aware of the doctor's curious behavior in the evenings, I simply couldn't wrap my head around how someone so clearly skilled and brave could change so dramatically into a coward by night. At length, though, he did eventually share with me two formative episodes from his past. 6. Two Episodes to Consider Jiang Shi, the doctor told me, were not just make-believe creatures told to frighten children

into obeying their parents, but real, actual creatures that prowled the night. Or at the very least, he insisted, he had tarried with two entities that fit virtually all the descriptions of the terrible Jiang Shi. The first incident had taken place back in the doctor's youth. While traversing a dark wood, one of the ghouls had attacked him on sight. Though unable to clearly make out his attacker in the gloom, as with the boat robbers, he fought back. He could scarcely make out what he was fighting against in the twilight, save for that it was generally human-shaped, but moved with a very strange spastic motion, as though missing

half its joints. Still, he was full of confidence that he could defeat any man with his superior was generally human-shaped, but moved with a very strange, spastic motion, as though missing half its joints. Still, he was full of confidence that he could defeat any man with his superior martial skill. Yet, as it would turn out, this time they would count for nothing. Again and again, he punched, elbowed, and kicked the figure with all his power, but each time felt as though he were bashing himself against a solid wood or stone wall. At last exhausted, he retreated by scrambling up a tree, reaching its swaying heights. He was certain that his opponent, whatever it was, would be close behind him, yet found that with its oddly rigid body, it was no good at climbing. That by no means stopped it from trying.

Over and over again, the doctor listened to the figure far below, beating itself against the tree trunk as though a bird hitting a pane of window glass. Through the course of the entire night, the creature never once gave up or stopped its futile assault. Its dumb, stubborn arms gripped at the trunk as it circled about over and over, trying to find some method of ascent. Exhausted, yet terrified beyond all reason or rest, Doctor Who was forced to wait in the heights of the tree, clutching fast to his perch until daybreak. As the streamers of the sun's light penetrated the forest canopy at last, the terrible and seemingly inexhaustible energy of the figure below began to slow, until after a while it ceased moving altogether, as though it had abruptly died while holding the tree, and now remained stuck fast, like the cast-off shell of a cicada.

Despite the apparent death of the now-in shell of a cicada. Despite the apparent death of the now-inert creature, Doctor Who, quite understandably, was very reluctant to quit his treetop sanctuary. At long last, he heard the approaching jangling sounds of a string of camels on their owners. Comforted by this group of passing traitors, the Doctor at last screwed up the courage to clamber down the tree and to the ground. Upon reaching the ground, Doctor Who got his first good look at the entity that had kept him up all night. Man-shaped, yes, but certainly no man, though it may once have been.

Its form was covered in a layer of white resembling snow from a distance, but upon closer inspection something more like a powdery dusting of mold. Its dead and blank eyes were a blood red, and its hands ended not in fingertips, but rather terrible talons. Jutting forth from the creature's slack mouth were a multitude of needle-sharp teeth, so long that they would have protruded even out of a fully closed mouth. The creature exuded an aura of powerful and permeating wrongness, both from its inhuman appearance, but at least as much as an almost ambient miasma of moral evil, disturbing the good doctor to his very core. Terrible as that first encounter had been, Doctor Who assured me that his second run-in with a Jiang

Shi proved even more harrowing. This happened at a guesthouse far up in a remote mountain range. He was fast asleep when a motion beneath his sheets roused him to wakefulness. Thinking, naturally, that it was some normal nocturnal creature, perhaps a rat or a snake going about its nightly routines, the doctor strove to keep still in order not to frighten the animal into attacking or biting him. Instead, he lay there and simply watched the creeping progress of whatever it was, waiting for it to poke its head out of the sheets and therefore render itself easily caught by the neck and removed from the premises. Yet as he watched, to his mounting horror, the thing beneath the sheets began to grow,

swelling to impossibly large dimensions before his very eyes. First to the size of a human head, and then, as though inflating, to the size and rough shape of a full body. Now it did poke its head out from beneath the sheets, and it was indeed a human head, that of a beautiful woman. It stretched its way around and up to the very pillow next to Doctor Who's own, and entwined her naked, soft, warm body around his. Despite the beauty and warmth of this woman-thing beside him, Doctor Who felt no lust or desire.

He had seen this thing grown from nothing, after all, and now was utterly paralyzed with terror. He could not even move as the thing reached with its impossibly long arms and gripped him close in a crushing embrace. Nor could he fight as she plunged her face against his, her mouth stinking with rotting decay and clotted blood to the point that he gagged and fainted. Whatever happened next, he did not know. That surely would have been a great mercy, save for the fact that upon being discovered sometime later, Dr. Hu proved unable to be roused from his unnaturally induced coma. It is likely that he would have remained in his unconscious state until death took him,

if not for the timely intervention of a physic wise enough to administer powerful antitoxins and reversal agents. These were slowly poured down the doctor's throat until consciousness returned to him, and in time the full capacity of his senses and body. After that night, however, Doctor Who forever after feared the dark, and it made him tremble uncontrollably, for he knew that the dark stillnesses of the night were not empty, and held no promise of safety. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Listen to Season 1 to hear

about England's first attempts at empire building, in Ireland, in North America and in the Caribbean, the first steps of the East India Company and the political battles between King and Parliament. Listen to Season 2 to hear about the chaotic years of civil war, revolution and regicide which rocked the Three Kingdoms and the Fledgling Empire. In Season 3, we see how Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ruled the powerful Commonwealth and challenged the Dutch and the Spanish for the wealth and power of the Americas and Asia. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax. I hope you enjoyed that terrible tale, and likewise, that unlike the hapless Doctor Who,

whoever you wake up next to is someone who was there the night before. In the next story, we follow Ji-Yoon out on as an official-in-exile in faraway Urumqi. While serving out his three years in the western expanses, he nevertheless dutifully collected all the tales he could about the strange, mystical, and horrifying. This story in particular, though, is about one of his earliest experiences upon arriving in Xinjiang, and the dangers of taking an unusual practice more lightly than winds up being prudent. in particular, though, is about one of his earliest experiences upon arriving in Xinjiang, and the dangers of taking an unusual practice more lightly than winds up being prudent. When you're traveling, make sure that you have all the appropriate paperwork signed,

sealed, and correct. After all, you'd hate to be stopped at one of those... checkpoints. There was a portion of my career that I was, quite outside of my desire or control, assigned to the distant city of Urumqi in the far western desert province of Xinjiang. How that came to pass is quite a tale for another time, but not relevant here. In the early days of my assignment there, one afternoon, a long-serving army clerk approached me carrying brush and ink along with a large stack of papers and requested that I apply my signature to them. What sort of papers are these? I asked. Passports, he replied. Please understand, most of us soldiers are from far away, often from the other side of the empire entirely. As such, whenever any of us die out here,

we have to ship the bodies back to their hometowns for their funerals. You're a well-traveled man, and so of course know that we living folk have to pass through many checkpoints when we move from region to region. What you might not know, however, is that the same is true for the dead. There are actually spiritual checkpoints for the souls of the dead, and therefore the dead are no more exempt from carrying the appropriate paperwork with them than the living. If they're found without them, their souls are detained at that checkpoint, and they can proceed no further, lest they be allowed to roam around and cause undue trouble. Why, I imagine you must have some sort of documents like this where you come from as well. I replied that I did not, and when the clerk showed me the official Passport of the Dead template, I tried, without much success, to contain my laughter at such a silly idea.

Yet he pressed on, explaining that regardless of what I might think of it, the forms simply must be completed as per specification. The text of the document was as follows. To all spirit guards, On this date of, insert date here, in insert year here, master slash mistress, insert name here, age, insert age here, died in insert location here, of insert cause of death here. Do not hinder the transport of their body to the deceased's hometown or the spirit that hovers near it still. Furthermore, see to it that all possible aid is given to the speedy arrival

of this traveler. Signed, insert name here, presiding official. As I read, the clerk explained that it was important that all the ink be in black, as well as the wax of the seal. After I finished reading the directive, it was immediately obvious to me that this was some sort of a cheap scam invented by some official with more time on his hands than scruples, and designed to collect reading the directive, it was immediately obvious to me that this was some sort of a cheap scam invented by some official with more time on his hands than scruples, and designed to collect envelopes full of cash from these superstitious and gullible soldiers. So, after dismissing the clerk, I proceeded directly to the general's quarters, and advised him in the strongest possible terms that he ought to henceforth forbid the practice. Gullibility, after all,

should never be encouraged or allowed among one's own troops. I hope that that was the end of this ridiculous topic, as I of course had far more pressing matters to attend to. As it happened, though, it was anything but. Not more than a few days later, the same clerk approached me once again with an air of undue urgency, only to inform me that he had been receiving reports that more and more restless spirits had begun amassing near the western border of Urumqi and disturbing those nearby. They had been rustling through the grasses and trees with increasing fortitude,

and caterwauling and howling at the horses and pigs, frightening the animals into terrified stampedes. The clerk informed me that the people were upset, and not only at the unquiet spirits, but at me too, because it had been my refusal to sign and seal the documents that had caused those spirits to be turned away at the western checkpoint. This time I was not amused by the subject of spirit passports, and I shouted at the clerk to not bother me again with such ridiculous stories. That particular man was suitably told off and did not approach me again. Yet to my mounting surprise and chagrin, as the days passed, several other people came to me, all reporting of similar incidents,

but at a rapidly mounting pace. Now, apparently, reports were coming in from all parts of the city, no longer just the western border, about spirits running wild and causing chaos. I racked my brain, trying to figure out why the whole of Urumqi suddenly seemed to be in league with what was obviously nothing more than a two-bit scam. It was positively nonsensical. Until, that is, late one evening in my own estate, I heard the hollow wails from just beyond my garden wall.

Even then, I resisted believing. Yes, the sounds were real enough, my own ears informed me as much, but they were not the cries of the dead, rather nothing more than further trickery from more of those scam artists' confederates. Probably, I surmised, even the original concept of ghost passports was some part of elaborate citywide practical joke. That eminently logical theory lasted little longer than it took for the sorrowful cries to reach the outer panes of my chamber's window. I looked out, expecting to catch the charlatan red-handed, only to find nothing at all. No human source was attached to the wailing moans, overt or hidden.

Nothing but empty air over a patch of ground, lit by the gibbous moon that shone overhead as bright as a bolt of lightning. I retired to my bedchamber deeply disturbed, and early the following morning sought out my friend Guang Cheng, a higher-up in the Department for Supervising the Conduct of Government Officials. Upon hearing my tale, he nodded and softly replied, Here is my advice to you. It was sensible for you to forbid those spirit passports, because they do sound absurd. But since then, the sightings and complaints have been heard and reported by many witnesses, which now include even you.

As such, even if we maintain that the spirit passports began as a hoax or a scam, it seems evident that the spirits themselves have become convinced that they need them too. So, logically, it stands to reason that you should draw up a few and see if it makes a difference, no? I quickly agreed, and did what Guan Cheng had proposed. All the bodies that were to be transported had their affixed papers properly made out and stamped that very day. But I went one further. I made sure to make out the passports for all the bodies in the previous days who had departed without them. The following night, all across the city, was peaceful.

Paper is a funny thing. In itself, it is a fragile substance, easily torn, ripped, or burned, and can be used and then immediately discarded. Yet, it is also used to create a great number of lasting, enduring things. Marriages, official positions, educational decrees, residency, and much more. All those states and instructions require their due documentation, and indeed are not considered real or valid without them. In fact, civilizations owe their very existence not only to great physical constructs, structures, and monuments that they build from clay and stone, but even more so to the things created through the processing of nothing more than the drawing up of ephemeral papers. Because the people themselves believe it to be so,

those things are every bit as real as the very stone and firmament. How very interesting that so much of the physical world around us is directed and affected by that which is not physical, be they spirits or documents. One further incident I witnessed furthers this connection. The eyes of my ever-faithful assistant, Song Ji-lu, suddenly rolled up in his head one day as we worked, and he fainted straight away. When after a while he came to, he told me that he had fainted because he saw his mother's spirit float into the room and gesture toward him. Lo and behold, only a few minutes later, a runner came in with a document

informing Song Ji-lu of the sad news that his mother, while in transit to come visit him, had died. The rules that govern our world include many that are known, but many more that are only half understood or remain unknown completely. While there are many who are quick to ascribe explanations for why every aspect of the world is the way that it is, at absolute best, their rationales can only account for what their eyes can see and their ears hear, and is explicable to the sensible, Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore the tales of this amazing culture, from the legendary days of creation and the gods, all the way to Cleopatra, and everything in between. The History of Egypt podcast is written and produced by a trained

Egyptologist. We go much deeper than your average documentary or magazine article to uncover tales of life, great endeavours, and the amazing arc of a mighty kingdom. The History of Egypt podcast is available on all podcasting platforms, apps, and websites. Come, visit ancient Egypt, and experience a legendary culture. Of course, most of the stories Ji-Yoon acquired while out in distant Urumqi didn't come from personal experience. His day job was largely to serve as an interrogator, or as he liked to put it, interviewer, of the various peoples the Chain Border Patrol dragged in on charges. Once he ticked off all the official intel boxes, though,

he'd sometimes ask if his interviewee had any really out-there stories from the lands beyond the last watchtowers. And man, oh man, did he get some good ones. If you're planning to take a trip to Tibet any time in the future, don't forget to get your travel permit, pack as much cold-weather gear as you can, and be flexible in your currency expectations. After all, you never know when you might be paid in... Yeti stones.

In the course of my exile into military service in far-off Urumqi, I was often tasked with the interview of captives from the wastes, both to collect information valuable to His Majesty's military interests, as well as my own ongoing personal project to collect and record tales of the strange and wild, as you are reading here. In the course of such things, then, I so happened to interview a criminal by the name of Gang Taorong. He told me the story of a merchant who had journeyed to the arid highlands of Tibet to sell his goods at market therein. He did not travel alone, but was accompanied by a second merchant and two donkeys laden with the pair's merchandise.

The journey, I was told, swiftly took a downward turn. First, the small band found themselves hopelessly lost in the midst of the endless icy vastness of the Himalayan mountains. This might seem bad enough, but it was only the beginning of their travails. For as they searched about desperately for some familiar landmark to guide them back to the established path, far in the distance they spied a dozen figures leaping down a sheer rock shelf and then making swiftly toward them. Terrified that they were about to be set upon by bandits intent on robbing and slaughtering them, they despaired. But as the distant group grew ever closer, it slowly became clear that, whatever they might be, these individuals were certainly

no normal set of bandits. In fact, they were not even human. Between two and three meters tall, these towering giants that now approached the pair of merchants and their braying beasts of burden were covered head to foot with dark hair lined with sun-bleached streaks of auburn and gold. Their faces, though roughly human-like, were nevertheless distinctly other. This pack or troop spoke to one another, or at least seemed to after a fashion. Again, though there were familiar and nearly human elements in some of the utterances heard, still others were distinctly animalistic, sharp grunts and simian hoots and hollers. Understandably terrified by the beast's strange appearance, the two merchants threw

themselves down to the ground, covering their heads with their arms, as one might if attacked by a bear, and bawled out pleas and sobs to the heavens, fully expecting, of course, to be swiftly torn to pieces and devoured by these beasts. But instead of attacking the defenseless men, the troop of creatures, one and all, burst out into what was unmistakably a loud series of animalish guffaws and laughter. The towering creatures reached down and, as if a child picking up a toy, hoisted the pair of men up and then forced them and their donkeys to march over the hills and rocks far into the distance until they all arrived at a flat, open plain. This appeared to be some kind of gathering ground for these creatures, as was made evident by

what happened next. Having arrived, the creatures pushed one of the donkeys, pack and all, into a pre-dugout hole. As for the other, the beast set upon it and cut it to pieces in short order. After kindling a fire, the creatures roasted the donkey meat over it and then divided it into shares, serving out hulking sections to each of the two merchants, as though they were honored guests at some royal feast. Exhausted, hungry, and just glad that they were evidently not themselves bound to be roast over the fire, the two dug in happily and ate their fill alongside their curious captors. All the while, the beasts grunted and howled at one another in their incomprehensible tongue,

ever so often casting sharp looks toward the men. Once the meal had been consumed, the creatures patted their swollen bellies, and then broke out into a cacophonous set of screeching howls, sharp, high-pitched, and with some quality almost like that of a whinnying horse. Perhaps some kind of celebratory song. After a while, the animalistic singing stopped, and at some unknown signal, it was decided that the time had come to move on. Two of the creatures hefted up each of the merchants, and with an incredible speed akin to a monkey traversing the jungle treetops,

dashed now over the frozen landscapes of the silent woods and icy valleys, till at last they reached a well-traveled road that the merchants immediately recognized. There, the creature set the two men down and wordlessly presented each with a stone the size of a ripe melon, before vanishing back into the wilds. The pair hauled their strange blue stones all the way back to their village, and upon arriving, had the items inspected. As it so happened, their gifts were ovals of turquoise of a particularly high rarity in purity, and were each quickly sold for a value far greater than all their lost merchandise put together. I have never heard of, nor in my studies come across,

any description matching the type of creature these two merchants are said to have encountered among the Himalayan slopes. It seems clear, though, that these creatures are of a corporeal nature rather than supernatural, neither mountain deities nor demonic in nature. Rather, they seem to be some as-yet-undescribed race of men, or near-men, that keep themselves hidden amidst the desolate crags and remotest gorges of that heaven-scraping mountain range. I say this truly. Those who scoff at tales of the supernatural as being far too strange to be believed would do well to take a closer look at the natural world around them and its many mysteries yet to be understood, for it is equally as strange. In our final tale today, we are introduced to the concept of the Xianyu.

When typically translated, the term is rendered as fairy, which is fair enough. But at least in this particular tale, the Xianyu in question seems to be less one of the fair folk and much more akin to visitors from a significantly more distant place. So call them Xianyu, call them fairies, call them greys, call them wanderers in the outer darkness, call them little green men if you must. Just beware of any dealing or offers made to you by visitors from beyond. One day, I received a letter that, though written in my own language, seemed almost to be utterly foreign as I read it. The thoughts and ideas contained on the pages were so odd, jumbled, and confusing that they were all but impossible to make heads or tails of.

The really puzzling thing about it, though, was that a letter of such bafflingly poor quality was not from some raving idiot, but my own good friend Shen Tiechan, who I'd known for years as being highly intelligent and literate. The other aspect of the letter, apart from its lack of writing quality, was its tone. Confused though it was, it was clearly written with an air of deep sorrow and nostalgia, as though writing a final goodbye. Yet I knew for a fact that Tiechan was just over in Shanxi, having just begun a probationary stint at an official post there. Not long after I received this strange letter, further posts arrived for me, informing me that Tiechan had suddenly died.

Life is truly strange, and filled with happenings that defy easy reason or understanding. As we get by in our own lives from one day unto the next, we naturally let many of these unordinary events pass us by unregarded, as much for our own sanity's sake as anything else. There is, after all, too much to trouble us as it is. Yet the peculiarity of this tragedy, of the inexplicable loss of my dear friend, I simply could not let pass. I therefore spoke with Tiechuan's neighbors, friends, family, and even his rivals. Bit by bit, I began putting together the tragic puzzle that explained his end. This is what I discovered.

That previous summer, Tiechuan had gone hunting up in the Xian Mountains in order to restore his spirits after a long and difficult period of sickness. The trip proceeded unremarkably for the most part, with one notable exception. When he emerged from the woods and headed back towards civilization, something apparently followed him. As he would admit to very few, this something took the form of a pair of orbs in the sky, twisting about one another like windmills. No one else could see these orbs. And even the lone witness of this strangeness, Tiechuan himself,

did not see them in what we'd call a normal fashion. That is to say, he could see them whenever he looked in their direction, even if his eyes were shut or another object was in the way. For several days, the orbs silently followed him wherever he went. Then, without warning, they broke open. From within, two young women floated down to him in unison, and together delivered him a message. Their mistress, they said, was a fei being known as a xiannu, and had taken a great interest in Tiechan and now wished

to meet him personally. Understanding that such an invitation could not be refused, Tiechan agreed to meet this xiannu. In an instant, he found himself in a room unlike any he'd ever seen or heard of before. Its sheer scale dizzied the mind, and his dimensions seemed oddly beyond comprehension. A color he approximated as being like jade and yet not, were covered in strange shapes of a purplish hue that he most closely described as being vaguely like seashells, though of a type belonging to a creature Tiechan could not possibly fathom. Already trembling at the sheer strangeness of his sudden predicament, the uncanniness of Tiechan's plight only continued to mount with the appearance of the Xianyu mistress herself. Her beauty was undeniable

and unsurpassed, but it was not the sort of beauty that soothes the heart. Rather, the sheer preternatural overwhelmingness of this being's visage was deeply disturbing to Tiechan's already shaken mind. She spoke then, and her voice was likewise terrible in its unearthly resonance. To his absolute shock, she asked Tiechuan to become her lover. Already teetering on the brink of an absolute breakdown by this strange surroundings and circumstance, Tiechuan refused the Xiannu's advances, saying that he wasn't able to comply in such a condition as his. At this, the being became angry and waved him away. In the next instant, at precisely the last spot, he'd been approached by the Shen Yu's servants. Though for him, the bizarre encounter had been a matter of perhaps only tens of minutes,

the suddenly growing shadows indicated that a far greater period of time had passed than it had seemed. Hoping that his cold and sudden dismissal from the Shen Nu's presence would at least prove an end to the matter, Tiechuan tried to put it all out of his head and get on with his life. Yet only a few weeks later, the floating orbs reappeared, and as before, from within came forth the two female servants. This time, they did not ask him to join them, nor speak at all. Instead, they simply took him. Once again, in a flash, he found himself in a new location. But this was not as before. No longer was it the Hall of Strange and Garish Colors, vast beyond comprehension. It was now a

much smaller location, with colors far more subdued, and what has been described as an even somewhat homey feeling. All in all, it was a location far easier on the mind than the first. The Xiannu then made its second appearance, and, though no less beautiful in vision and voice, was somehow now far gentler. She asked him if he now felt more comfortable, and Tiecheng, not daring attempt to lie, had no choice to agree that he did. This evidently pleased her, and she declared then that he no longer had any reason to reject her. Once again, what could he do but agree? From that time forward, the two met regularly, during both waking and dreaming states. After each liaison, before returning to his prior circumstance, the Shennu would intone

to him to tell no one. This he promised to do, and held to it for a long time thereafter, even as he gradually began to take ill. But finally, when the severity of his ailment became too much to bear, Tiechuan was at last convinced to visit a doctor who specialized in matters both physical and spiritual. Sadly, it proved too late. The doctor prescribed Tiechan with small red pills to combat the illness, but he proved unable to keep them or anything else down. During one of his by this point incessant vomiting fits, Tiechan died, his final badly scrawled letter to me composed in the weeks, perhaps even the days, before his terminal decline.

I will never forget dear, poor Shen Tiechan. He was far too admirable an individual to be consigned to oblivion. He wrote poetry that was positively mind-expanding. His calligraphy dazzled. He was witty and genial, ever the life of the party. But no one alive exists without their secrets, or without their vices. And in the course of my investigation of the mysterious death of my friend Tiechan, I discovered one final fact, one that, in my estimation, may be the key that unlocks how these strange, tragic events began. In his middle age, Tiechan, always vain of his looks, had begun to mourn the toll life was beginning to take on his once youthful appearance, and to begin obsessing about the inevitability of death. As such, he had begun delving into rituals and practices associated with the formula for immortality, seeking out and acquiring tomes and scrolls of occult knowledge, and comporting with sorcerers and alchemists who were rumored to dabble

in long-forbidden magics. It is of little surprise, then, that in his quest into the greater mysteries beyond life and death, something unknown and unknowable from that limitless outer darkness may have taken notice in turn. It is well understood that though there are many spiritual forces that exist beyond the mortal barrier of our reality, good, indifferent, and evil alike, they typically do not interfere with or molest human beings, unless a person goes out of their way to make themselves known to them. It would appear that in so plumbing the depths of dark magic, poor Tiechan may have been doing little more than waving a lit torch aloft in an infinitely dark and vast cave, announcing his

presence to all. Through my investigations, it seems to me that the manifestations of such entities, and the tragedies that seem to inevitably trail in their wakes, are prompted not by events of the outer, physical world, but instead by events and turmoil of the inner, psychic world, the desires of the heart and that which lies in one's own imagination. I only wish that Tiechan had more zealously guarded those inner borders of his mind. And that does it for our look into Ji Yun's shadow book, and the many thousands of stories within. I hope that it was as interesting and fun for you to listen to that as it was for me to read and record it.

And if it wasn't, well, heck, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled episodes of the Ming Dynasty and of the Ming Emperor's time in the Mongol Khan's court next episode. So you got that to look forward to, which is nice. Until then, be good to each other. Happy October and autumn. And as always, thanks for listening. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over

turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for The Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts.