Original Text
Tan Jinxuan was a student in the county school. He deeply believed in the art of qigong for nourishing life, and practiced without cease through both bitter winter and scorching summer, never once interrupting his regimen. After several months of this, he felt as though he had achieved some measure of success. One day, while sitting cross-legged in meditation, he suddenly heard within his ear a faint whisper, like the buzzing of a fly, saying, "You may come out." Yet when he opened his eyes, the sound vanished. As soon as he closed his eyes again and regulated his breath, the same voice returned. Believing that his inner elixir was on the verge of completion, he secretly rejoiced. From then on, every time he sat in meditation, he heard that voice. So he resolved that when next it spoke, he would answer and see what transpired. One day, hearing the voice again in his ear, he softly replied, "You may come out." In a moment, he felt a painful itching within his ear, as if something were emerging. Glancing sideways, he saw a tiny figure about three inches tall, with a hideous, demonic face like a yaksha, scurrying about on the ground. Startled inwardly, he fixed his gaze upon the little creature, watching for any change. Suddenly, a neighbor came to borrow something, knocking at the door and calling out. Hearing the knock, the little figure grew terribly frightened and ran in circles around the room, like a rat unable to find its hole. At that moment, Tan felt his very soul slip from his body, and in a daze, he knew not where the little figure had gone. From then on, he fell into a fit of madness, ceaselessly shrieking and howling. He took medicine for over half a year before gradually recovering.
Commentary
Feng Zhenluan stated in his "Miscellaneous Remarks on Reading Liaozhai": "This book mostly recounts events from the regions of Mount Tai's vicinity and Zichuan County, recording what was seen and heard, occasionally extending to other provinces. In terms of time, it details recent times and briefly touches upon the Ming Dynasty." This approach makes the tales in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" feel intimate and familiar from the very beginning of their narration.
Since childhood, Pu Songling had been frail in health, and he was not only well-versed in the arts of meditation and breath control but also practiced them himself. He once wrote: "On the couch, cross-legged, I tend to old ailments; lately, my thoughts of the Way verge on madness" (from "Yuan Zixu and Sun Xiangzhi Invite Me on the Double Ninth Festival, but I Could Not Go, So I Wrote This to Send Them"), and "To preserve health, I learn to sit cross-legged; in the empty chamber, white light is born" (from "Sitting in Silence"). Thus, in this brief tale of one who, through practicing breath control, falls into demonic possession, he places himself in the character's position and vividly depicts Tan Jinxuan's loss of his very soul, touching upon the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and mind. Without such personal insight, it would likely be most difficult to manage such a description.
Using the human body's sensory organs as the basis for tales, "The Man in the Ear" and the later "The Speech of the Pupils" can be considered companion pieces. However, the little man in "The Speech of the Pupils" is quite endearing, possessing a fairy-tale charm, whereas the man in the ear is "as hideous as a yaksha," fully embodying the eerie and monstrous quality of the strange tales genre.