Original Text
Sun Wuli had a young servant who slept alone in a room, and in a daze he was seized by someone. He was taken to a palace, where he saw the King of Hell seated on his throne, who looked at him and said, "A mistake, it is not him." So he was sent back. After returning, the servant was greatly frightened and moved to another place to sleep. Then a servant named Guo An, seeing the bed empty, lay down there. Another servant named Li Lu, who had long held a grudge against the young servant and sought revenge, took a knife that night and entered the room. Groping about, he thought it was the young servant and killed him. Guo An's father brought the case to the authorities. At that time, Chen Qishan was the magistrate and treated the matter with great indifference. Guo's father wept bitterly, saying, "In half a lifetime, I have only this one son; how am I to live from now on!" Magistrate Chen then sentenced Li Lu to become Guo's father's son. Guo's father left the court nursing his grievance. The strangeness of this tale lies not in the young servant's encounter with a ghost, but in Magistrate Chen's manner of rendering judgment.
In a certain county west of Jinan, a man committed murder, and the victim's wife brought the case to the magistrate. The magistrate, greatly enraged, immediately arrested the culprit and, striking the table, cursed him, saying: "Another man's good wife and husband—you have made her a widow! Then I shall match you with her as her husband, and let your own wife become a widow as well." And so he pronounced the judgment. Such clear and swift verdicts are the work of those who have passed the imperial examinations; those of other backgrounds cannot achieve them. Magistrate Chen was also such a man—what path is there that does not yield talent!
Commentary
This chapter contains two legal case stories. What draws attention is not the peculiarity of the cases themselves, but the astonishing nature of their verdicts. These verdicts not only violate legal principles but also defy common sense, being utterly incomprehensible! Pu Songling commented: "Such clear and decisive judgments are all made by those who passed the highest imperial examinations; those from other paths cannot achieve this." This absolute judgment contains his criticism of the unfairness of the imperial examination system. For a person may excel in literary talent yet not necessarily shine in other aspects. Even if the imperial examinations were fair and selected talents appropriately, those chosen might still be unqualified for judicial trials. Wang Yuyang appended a story at the end of this chapter: "Chen Duan'an Ning, the magistrate of Xincheng, was gentle and indecisive by nature. A scholar named Wang Zhe rented out his house to someone, who long failed to pay the rent, so Wang sued him. Chen could not decide the case, only saying: 'The Book of Songs says: The magpie has a nest, the cuckoo dwells in it.' You, sir, may be the magpie." This also illustrates the principle that "those skilled in literary composition excel in the Hanlin Academy but falter in administrative affairs." Therefore, the crux of the matter lies not in whether the imperial examinations were fair or whether the system of granting official positions based on examination success was correct, but in the professionalism of judicial adjudication. Only when judicial adjudication becomes professional and independent, separated from traditional administration to form an independent profession and specialized discipline, can such absurd and ridiculous incidents be prevented. Regrettably, the independence and professionalism of the judiciary have always been weaknesses in traditional Chinese culture, with a deeply entrenched tradition.