Original Text
On a winter night in the twelfth year of the Shunzhi reign, several fiery red characters appeared in the sky, reading: "White sweet potato replaces Jing, no further deliberation on court governance."
Commentary
The appearance of characters in the sky was considered a portentous omen in ancient China. The brilliance of this tale lies in the fact that the celestial script hovers between the interpretable and the incomprehensible, thus becoming a matter of objective record. It is likely a piece of source material recorded by Pu Songling. The Qing dynasty scholar Wang Yuyang, in his work *Chibei Outan: Tan Yi Qi*, transcribed this text, merely adding the line, "After a while, they gradually dispersed, and were seen throughout the regions of Yi and Ju." By including the location of the sighting and the transformation of the forms, the account becomes notably more rigorous.