Original Text
In Changshan County there lived an old man named An, who was fond of farming. One autumn, when his buckwheat ripened and was harvested, he piled it by the field ridges. As neighboring villages had thieves stealing crops, Old An had his laborers load the grain onto carts under the moonlight and transport it to the threshing ground that very night. After they set off with the carts, he stayed behind alone to keep watch, resting in the open with his spear as a pillow. No sooner had he closed his eyes than he heard a rustling sound, like someone stepping on buckwheat stalks. Suspecting a thief, he quickly looked up and saw a giant ghost over ten feet tall, with disheveled red hair and a wild beard, already very close. Startled beyond thought, he leaped up and thrust his spear fiercely at the ghost, which vanished with a thunderous roar. Fearing its return, he shouldered his spear and headed home. On the way, he met the laborers coming back and told them what he had seen, urging them not to go again, but they were half skeptical. The next day, as they were drying the buckwheat on the threshing ground, they suddenly heard a noise in the air. Old An cried out in terror, "The ghost is coming!" and fled, with the others following. After a while, they gathered again, and Old An had them prepare many bows and arrows to guard against the ghost's return. The next day, the ghost indeed came again. They shot a volley of arrows, and the ghost fled in fright. For two or three days after, it did not reappear. When the buckwheat was threshed and stored in the granary, the threshing ground was covered with tangled straw. Old An had the laborers gather it into a stack, and he climbed up himself to trample it firm, the stack rising several feet high. Suddenly, looking into the distance, he shouted again, "The ghost is coming!" The men rushed for their bows, but the ghost had already pounced on Old An, knocked him down, bit off his forehead, and fled. When the laborers climbed to the top of the stack, they saw that a palm-sized piece of his skull had been bitten away, and he lay unconscious. They hurriedly carried him home, where he soon died. After that, the ghost never appeared again, and no one knew what kind of demon it was.
Commentary
Buckwheat is known as qiaomai. The Monster in the Buckwheat Field thus signifies a creature dwelling amid the buckwheat crop. Yet what manner of monster it might be, the tale does not explicitly reveal, nor does it intend to. It comes without shadow, departs without trace, elusive and bewildering, mysterious beyond measure—such is the very effect the story seeks to achieve.
Old Man An of Changshan engaged in a military-like struggle with the Quzhong Monster, an entity of unknown nature, and unfortunately, he became the loser in this conflict. Why did he fail? The reason was that the Quzhong Monster was exceedingly cunning, employing what might be called "guerrilla tactics" against Old Man An. There were four encounters between them: In the first, Old Man An emerged victorious, and the Quzhong Monster was defeated, for Old Man An had a weapon—a halberd—for self-defense, and he spotted the monster first, launching a sudden attack by "leaping up violently and stabbing it fiercely." In the second, Old Man An escaped unscathed, again because he detected the Quzhong Monster in advance and had a path of retreat. In the third, Old Man An was prepared, protected by a crowd, and armed with bows and arrows as defensive weapons, thus managing to repel the Quzhong Monster. But in the fourth, Old Man An likely grew somewhat careless; he climbed alone to the top of a buckwheat stack, separated from the crowd, without carrying any weapon, and with no escape route, allowing the Quzhong Monster to seize the opportunity and bring about his untimely death.