法苑珠林 70.86

70.86

Lü Qingzu, a native of Yongkang in the Song era, had an extremely wealthy household. He usually had a servant named Jiaoxi guard his rural villa. During the Yuanjia era, he went there to inspect it and was suddenly killed by someone. His clan brother Wuqi had previously borrowed a large amount of money from Qingzu, so everyone suspected he had done the deed. Wuqi brought sheep, wine, and dried meat to the coffin and prayed, saying, 'Your bitter end was cruel like this; if your soul possesses spirit, let its author be known!' When he returned, at the third watch of the night, he saw Qingzu coming and saying, 'Recently, when I went on inspection, I saw that Jiaoxi had not tended the fields, and I promised that I would severely punish the slave. The slave thereupon chopped my back with an axe and stuffed his hat into my mouth. I was thus able to bite three of the slave's fingers, completely breaking them. He then took a knife, stabbed my neck, and dragged me to the back gate. When I was first being killed, the attendants were also among them. The slave now intends to flee; I have already pinned his hair to the wall.' Having finished speaking, he disappeared. Early the next morning, Wuqi reported this to his parents, and they secretly inspected the wall where the slave stayed. Sure enough, there was a handful of hair pinned to it with a bamboo nail. They also looked at his fingers, all of which showed broken wounds. They arrested the slave and interrogated him, and he confessed. They further asked, 'Since you committed this rebellion, why did you not flee?' The slave said, 'My head felt as if it were tied down, and though I wanted to escape, I could not.' Everything agreed with what the others had seen. They thereupon burned Jiaoxi and his two sons. (The preceding nine verifications are from the Record of Wronged Spirits.)