Original Text
During the Kangxi reign, there was a conjurer who carried a box containing a small person, about a foot tall. When money was thrown to him, he would open the box and let the small person out, who would sing a song before returning to the box. The man came to Ye County, and the magistrate of Ye County took the box into the yamen and carefully interrogated the small person about his origins. At first, the small person dared not tell the truth, but after repeated questioning, he revealed his hometown and family. It turned out that the small person was a young scholar who, while returning home from school, had been bewitched by the conjurer, who then administered a drug that caused his limbs to shrink drastically, and the man used him as a performing tool to carry around. The magistrate was enraged, had the conjurer executed, and kept the child, intending to cure him, but had not yet found a method of treatment.
Commentary
If examined from the perspective of medical science, "The Little People" is pure nonsense, for throughout history, in China or abroad, it has never been possible to shrink a person's limbs violently to a mere foot in height through the ingestion of drugs. Yet, viewed from a social standpoint, "The Little People" reflects the reality of the Ming and Qing dynasties, where children were abducted, trained, and exploited for street performances to turn a profit, and it mirrors society's deep dread of such practices.
Among the works in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, there is a category of stories that are merely social rumors and hearsay, lacking any factual truth. Pu Songling, in his pursuit of the strange and extraordinary, bore no responsibility for the authenticity of these tales; he likely only used his brilliant literary brush to vividly and colorfully transmit these rumors.