Original Text
Liu Zongyu of Yishui County related this: His servant Du He, while strolling in the garden, happened to see coins flowing like water, the stream being about two or three feet in both depth and width. Overjoyed, Du He scooped up handfuls of the coins with both hands, then lay down upon the flowing stream. When he later rose to look, the coins had all vanished, leaving only those he held in his hands.
Commentary
This is perhaps the shortest fable in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Excluding punctuation, Money Flow comprises no more than fifty-odd characters, yet it contains profound and abundant implications. An anonymous commentator on the manuscript of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio remarked: "Its wondrous meaning is inexhaustible." Due to its brevity and subtlety, it can be interpreted from multiple perspectives, but it centrally expresses Pu Songling's concept of currency flowing like water, embodying his merchant consciousness regarding money. Of course, tracing its origins, this view did not originate with Pu Songling; Sima Qian stated in the Biographies of the Merchants in Records of the Grand Historian: "The principle of accumulating wealth is to ensure goods are of fine quality and to let no money lie idle." "Wealth and currency should be made to flow like water."