法苑珠林 64.32

64.32

In the third year of the Xianqing reign of the Tang dynasty, when Xu Yu served as Inspector of Jinzhou, a butcher in the eastern lane of the marketplace slaughtered a pig. Its life was ended, it was scalded with hot water, and all its hair and bristles were scraped off. After half a day had elapsed following its death, greedy to slaughter the other pigs, he had not yet had time to butcher and dismember it. At daybreak, he took a knife to slit its belly, making a long incision downward along the abdomen, but the knife blade had not yet penetrated inside. The pig suddenly rose, ran out of the gate, and dashed straight toward the western wall of the marketplace. It went under the bed inside a worthy man's shop and lay down there. The people of the market vied to go and look at it. The butcher was still pursuing it with his knife in hand. The onlookers asked about the cause, and the butcher replied, “In all my life slaughtering pigs, I have never heard of or seen such a thing!” He still wished to take it away. Several hundred onlookers all rebuked and censured the butcher, and they vied with one another to put up money to ransom it. The crowd jointly built a shelter to house it. Only after a long time did the hair on its body begin to grow. The wounds under its throat and belly healed into a large fleshy wart as thick as a human arm. Going in and out, back and forth, it never soiled its quarters; by nature it was clean, unlike ordinary pigs. It died only after four or five years. (Wang Tongren of Jinyang County in Bingzhou, an Administrative Assistant in the Prince of Xu's Princely Establishment, fully witnessed and recounted this).