The Strange Melon

Discover the bizarre true story from Kangxi-era China where a cucumber vine bore a watermelon—a strange crop anomaly recorded in Pu Songling's classic.

Original Text

In the sixth month of the twenty-sixth year of the Kangxi reign, within the vegetable garden of a villager west of Zichuan county town, a cucumber vine once again put forth tendrils and bore a watermelon as large as a bowl.

Commentary

This is a factual record of a strange phenomenon concerning crops, likely the shortest chapter in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, consisting of twenty-eight characters, with a narrative that is concise, pure, and elegantly clear.

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