Original Text
There was a man named Diao who had no means of livelihood and often went out to sell the art of physiognomy as taught by Xu Fu, though he actually possessed no real skill. Every few months he would return home, always bringing back a bag full of money, which puzzled everyone. Once, a fellow villager was traveling abroad and saw from afar a man in a tall courtyard with a large gate, wearing a Huayang headdress, muttering something while surrounded by a group of women. Drawing closer, he recognized the man as Diao. So he secretly watched what he was doing. Someone among the women asked, "Among us, there is a noble lady. Can you identify her?" It seemed that a high-ranking lady had disguised herself and mingled with the others to test his abilities. The villager felt embarrassed for Diao, but Diao calmly gazed into the air, pointed with a horizontal sweep of his hand, and said, "What is so difficult about this? Look, above the noble lady's head, there will naturally be a halo of clouds." The women all turned to look at one particular person, trying to discern her cloud aura. Diao then pointed at that person and said, "This is the true noble lady!" The women were all astonished, believing him to be a divine being. When the villager returned, he recounted Diao's deceptive trick. From this, it became known that even a small trick must require extraordinary talent; otherwise, how could one deceive others, earn money, and conduct a business that yields great profit from nothing?
Commentary
This passage, through the fortune-teller's use of "cunning deception" to identify the noblewoman among the crowd, exposes the so-called art of physiognomy in the underworld as a trick to "deceive the eyes and ears, earn money without capital, and multiply wealth without foundation." From this, it can be seen that in many chapters of "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" that involve physiognomy, the author did not truly believe in it, but merely used it to weave the fabric of his stories.