Original Text
In Zhaocheng there lived an elderly widow of over seventy years, who had but one son. One day, her son went into the mountains and was devoured by a tiger. The old woman was overcome with grief, nearly losing her will to live, and wailing bitterly she brought her complaint before the district magistrate. The magistrate laughed and said, "How can the law be applied to a tiger?" At this, the old woman wept all the more loudly, and no one could calm her. The magistrate rebuked her, but she remained unafraid. Taking pity on her advanced age, he could not bear to lose his temper, and so promised to capture the tiger for her. The old woman would not rise from the ground, insisting that she would not leave until a warrant for the tiger's arrest was issued. The magistrate, seeing no other recourse, asked his runners which of them could undertake the task. A runner named Li Neng, who was deeply drunk, stepped forward and declared, "I can do it." He accepted the warrant and withdrew, and only then did the old woman depart. When Li Neng sobered, he regretted his words, but thought the magistrate had only made a show to be rid of the old woman, so he did not take it seriously. When the appointed day came to report, he returned the warrant. The magistrate, enraged, said, "You yourself claimed you could capture the tiger; how dare you now go back on your word?" Li Neng, greatly distressed, begged to be allowed to summon the hunters of the district to serve in his stead, and the magistrate agreed. Li Neng gathered the hunters, and day and night they lay in ambush among the valleys, hoping to catch a tiger to fulfill the order. Yet after more than a month, they caught nothing, and Li Neng suffered several hundred lashes, with no one to hear his grievances. In despair, he went to the mountain temple east of the city, knelt down, and prayed, weeping bitterly. Presently, a tiger entered from outside. Li Neng was terrified, fearing he would be eaten. But the tiger, paying no heed to anything else, crouched down inside the temple gate. Li Neng prayed, "If you are the one who devoured the old woman's son, then lower your head and let me bind you." He then took a rope and fastened it around the tiger's neck, and the tiger submitted meekly. Li Neng led the tiger to the magistrate's court. The magistrate asked the tiger, "Was it you who ate the old woman's son?" The tiger nodded. The magistrate said, "Murder demands death; such is the law from ancient times. Moreover, the old woman had but one son, and you have devoured him. In her remaining years, how is she to live? If you can become her son, I will spare you." The tiger nodded again. So the magistrate released the rope and let the tiger go.
The old woman had been resenting the magistrate for not killing the tiger to avenge her son, but when she opened her door at dawn, there lay a dead deer at her threshold. She sold its meat and hide to sustain herself, and from then on, this became a regular occurrence; sometimes the tiger would even bring money and drop it in her courtyard. The old woman grew wealthy from this, and the tiger's care for her surpassed that of her own son, so she secretly felt grateful to it. When the tiger came, it would often crouch under the eaves all day, and neither human nor beast disturbed the other, free from suspicion. After several years, the old woman died, and the tiger arrived at the hall, roaring in mourning. Her savings were more than enough to cover the funeral expenses, and her clansmen buried her together. Just as the grave mound was raised, the tiger suddenly rushed over, scattering the mourners in fright. It went straight to the grave, wailing like thunder, and only departed after a long while. The locals built a "Temple of the Righteous Tiger" east of the town, which still stands today.
Commentary
This is a Chinese-style folk tale: a man-eating tiger is punished to atone for its crime by serving the victim's mother as a filial son. Because the tiger, in the city of Zhao, "provided for her in life and mourned her in death with utmost sincerity," the locals erected a "Righteous Tiger Shrine" in its honor.
After reading this piece, Wang Yuyang of the Qing Dynasty remarked: "People say that Wang Yuyi recorded a filial and righteous tiger, and I recorded a righteous tiger from Liangfuli in Ganzhou; with this one, that makes three. How many virtuous tigers there are!" However, from a modern perspective, as a fairy tale, the absurdity of the plot can be dismissed with a smile. Tigers eat people by nature, which has nothing to do with morality. The magistrate's decision may have been based on the belief that killing the tiger would merely avenge the old woman of Zhaocheng without solving her livelihood problem, so it was more practical to have the tiger act as her son and support her. But the author may have overlooked the fact that the old woman of Zhaocheng accepting filial care from the murderer of her son is utterly inhumane—was her grief, nearly to the point of death, caused by losing her son or by losing his support? In the story, the tiger is indeed "filial and righteous," but where does that leave the old woman of Zhaocheng in terms of morality?