Original Text
Li Sijian was a provincial graduate from Yongnian County. On the twenty-eighth day of the ninth month in the fourth year of the Kangxi reign, he beat his wife, née Li, to death with his own hands. The local magistrate of Yongnian submitted the case to Guangping Prefecture, which then sent an official to Yongnian to conduct the trial. As Li Sijian was being escorted to the prefectural yamen, he suddenly snatched a butcher's knife from a roadside meat stall, rushed straight into the City God Temple, climbed onto the temple's stage, knelt before the deity's statue, and spoke to himself, saying: "The god rebukes me for heeding the slanderous words of villains and distorting right and wrong among the villagers, and commands me to cut off my ears." Having said this, he sliced off his left ear and cast it down from the stage. Then he continued: "The god rebukes me for defrauding others of their money, and commands me to sever my fingers." With that, he chopped off the fingers of his left hand. Next he said: "The god rebukes me for committing adultery with women, and commands me to cut off my male organ." Thereupon he castrated himself, and then fell stiffly to the ground in a faint. At that time, the governor-general Zhu Yunmen had already submitted a memorial to the court requesting the revocation of Li Sijian's provincial graduate status, and the court had granted the request; but Li Sijian himself had already been executed beforehand by the infernal tribunal of the underworld. This tale I read in a copy of the official gazette.
Commentary
This story is drawn from the "Dichao," akin to what we now call "official news," revealing the breadth of sources for Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio and the expansive vision of Pu Songling.
This story contains two points worthy of note. First, the connection between the City God Temple and the stage was a common architectural form during the Ming and Qing dynasties, serving as an important venue for promoting feudal social ideology. Zheng Banqiao, in his "Inscription on the Weixian City God Temple Stele," explained why the temple and stage were linked, saying: "To delight the spirits, one offers songs and dances to welcome them, as the ancients have long done. The Book of Songs says, 'With lutes and drums, we welcome the God of Grain.' Does the God of Grain truly delight in lutes and drums? Who has ever known? It is merely that, in accordance with human hearts seeking to give thanks, they heap up such offerings to flatter the great spirit. Now that the City God is worshipped with human rites, why not entertain him with songs and dances?" In ancient times, the City God Temple occupied a position akin to the central square of a modern city; Li Sijian's actions, taking place on the stage of that square, would naturally create a sensation. Second, Li Sijian's "divine punishment" occurred almost simultaneously with the judicial punishment of the real world, further proving the unerring truth of the ancient Chinese maxim: "Good is rewarded with good, and evil with evil."