Original Text
Mr. Sun Jingxia, a teacher at the county school, recounted that a certain man from Zhucheng County, caught in the chaos of a bandit uprising, was slain by the rebels, his head dangling down upon his chest. After the bandits retreated, his family found his corpse and prepared to carry it away for burial, when they heard a faint breath; upon closer inspection, they saw that his throat was severed but still connected by a strip of flesh no wider than a finger. Thus, they supported his head and carried him home. After a day and a night, he began to groan, and they fed him a little food with a spoon and chopsticks; within half a year, he had fully recovered. More than ten years later, this man gathered with two or three others for casual conversation. One of them told a joke, causing the whole company to burst into laughter, and this man also clapped and laughed heartily. Unexpectedly, as he rocked back and forth in mirth, the old wound suddenly split open, his head fell to the ground, and blood gushed forth. The onlookers saw that he had already breathed his last. His father brought a lawsuit against the teller of the joke. The group pooled some money to give to the father, and also paid for the man's burial, thus settling the matter.
The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: A single laugh that caused a head to fall off—this is indeed the greatest laugh in a thousand ages! The head and neck were connected by a mere thread, yet the man did not die, only to wait ten years before a lawsuit arose from that very laugh. Was this not the result of debts owed to him by those two or three neighbors in a former life?
Commentary
This tale is written with both brevity and meticulous detail, summarizing the background in broad strokes while focusing its description on the severed head.
If we read this piece together with "Wild Dog," "Rolling Head," "Swift Blade," "Ghostly Wailing," "Carrying a Corpse," and "Pulling Out Intestines," the bloody scent of war and chaos becomes exceedingly thick. Pu Songling says, "With one laugh, the head falls—this is the greatest laugh in a thousand ages," which is written with tears in his eyes, using a comedic form to express tragic content, indirectly reflecting the atmosphere of that particular era.