Original Text
In the Shangshu (Minister) Dong Kewei's household in Qingzhou, Shandong, the family rules were extremely strict, so that no man or woman from the inner and outer quarters dared exchange a single word. One day, a maidservant and a male servant were caught flirting outside the middle gate. When Young Master Dong saw them, he scolded them angrily, and the two fled in separate directions. That night, Young Master Dong slept in his study with his young page. It was the height of summer, and the study doors were wide open. In the dead of night, the page was startled awake by an unusually loud noise from the bed. Under the moonlight, he saw the male servant who had been scolded by Young Master Dong during the day carrying something out the door. Since he was a household servant, the page thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. Suddenly, the page heard the heavy sound of boots, and saw a towering man with a ruddy face and a long beard, looking exactly like the image of Lord Guan Yu, the Marquis of Shouting, carrying a human head as he entered the study. The page was terrified and slithered like a snake under the bed. From the bed came a series of creaking and grinding sounds, as if clothes were being shaken or a belly massaged, and after a long while, the noise ceased. The sound of boots arose again, and the red-faced giant left the study. The page slowly craned his neck out and saw that dawn was already breaking through the window lattice. He reached out and touched the bed, and his hand came away sticky and wet; when he sniffed it, there was a smell of blood. The page loudly called out to the young master, and only then did Young Master Dong wake up. The page told him what he had seen in the night, and they brought a lamp to shine on the bed, only to find the pillow and mat covered in blood. Both were greatly alarmed and had no idea what had happened.
Suddenly, the yamen runners knocked on the door. Young Master Dong went out to receive the guests, and the runners were utterly astonished at the sight of him, exclaiming only that it was a strange affair. When questioned, they said, "Just now at the yamen gate, a man in a dazed state cried out loudly, 'I have killed my master!' The crowd, seeing bloodstains on his clothes, seized him and reported the matter to the authorities. Upon interrogation, it was discovered that he was a servant of Young Master Dong. He claimed to have already slain his master and buried the head beside the Temple of Lord Guan. We went to inspect the spot, and the earth of the pit was freshly turned, yet there was no head to be found." Young Master Dong, startled and perplexed, hastened to the court, and upon arrival, recognized the man as the servant who had dallied with the maidservant. He then recounted the strange events that had occurred in his household the previous night. The magistrate, deeply bewildered, had the servant severely flogged and then released. Young Master Dong, unwilling to nurse a grudge against a base fellow, betrothed the maidservant to the servant and sent them both away. A few days later, a neighbor living next to the servant's quarters heard a thunderous crash from within the room in the dead of night. Hurriedly rising, he called out to them, but received no answer. Pushing open the door, he found the couple and their bed all cleaved cleanly in two, with the wood and flesh bearing marks as if sliced by a single stroke. The manifestations of Lord Guan's divine power are many, but none is more extraordinary than this.
Commentary
This is a tale imbued with religious overtones, though not concerning immortals or Buddhas, but rather extolling the miraculous deeds of Lord Guan. After the historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" emerged, Guan Yu's social status in Chinese culture rose ever higher, and his miraculous interventions became especially numerous. This story recounts how Lord Guan guarded the household of Minister Dong, a man of strict and upright family traditions, protecting the life of the young Master Dong and punishing the servant who plotted harm against him. Yet, upon calm reflection, the maidservant and servant had merely engaged in jesting, having provoked no one. After the incident, the killing of the maidservant and servant appears quite dubious; after all, the alleged attempted murder of Master Dong was based on hearsay and shadows, while the slaying of the servants was a bloody reality. Whether the servants were truly slain by Lord Guan, or by someone else claiming to be Lord Guan, is a matter well worth investigating.