: Many years later, it was rumored someone in Maqiao had recognized a relative from a past life. When I was in Maqiao, I'd heard stories like this and after returning to the city I heard that incidents of a similarly bizarre nature had taken place in other parts of Hunan. I didn't place much credence in them. A friend of mine, a scholar of folklore who's done specialized research on the subject, has even taken me off to places he's investigated and pointed out to me example after example of living proof, making each and every one of them relate their past lives. I still felt such occurrences lay beyond my comprehension.

So, of course, you can imagine my amazement when something like this happened to people I knew.

By then it was the 1980s: a young man from Maqiao, working at a bean curd shop in Changle, found himself destitute, had lost everything- even down to his underpants-at cards. He tried calling on some acquaintance of his, but as soon as they saw him they bolted the door fast, gesticulating vigorously at him to leave.

He was so hungry that black stars were appearing before his eyes. Fortunately, one person still had a heart-a girl from the Golden Happiness Tavern, only thirteen years old, called Hei Danzi. While her boss was out, she secretly pressed a few buns on the young man, and two yuan besides. "And what d'you call this?" the young man boasted to his gang of confreres. "This is the magic of Brother Sheng!"

Shengqiu was his name, and he was the son of Benyi, Maqiao's former Party Branch Secretary.

In time, the boss of the Golden Happiness Tavern found out what was going on, that Hei Danzi was often helping Shengqiu out, and suspected that she was abusing her position, giving away things from the tavern. After carrying out a very careful stock check, the boss failed to discover any deficit or goods missing from the shop; but it still struck him as strange: why should a mangy, unemployed vagrant be worth such care and attention from Hei Danzi? As a distant uncle of Hei Danzi's, he felt he should cross-examine her about it and called her to him for questioning.

Hei Danzi lowered her head and wept.

"What are you crying about, what are you crying about?"

"He…"

"What about him?"

"He's my…"

"Spit it out, is he your boyfriend?"

"He's my…"

"Spit it out!"

"He's my son."

The boss's jaw-and almost a cup of boiling tea-dropped.

And that was how this surprising piece of news got out. People said Hei Danzi-Hei Danzi from the Golden Happiness Tavern-had recognized her own son from a past life. That was to say, she was the reincarnation of Maqiao's celebrated Tiexiang. If her boss hadn't pressed her, she would never have dared say it out loud. For days on end, people thronged the tavern, pointing and peeking. To cadres from the municipal committee and police substation, this was no trifling matter: this was the revival of feudal superstition-what was the world coming to? Betting was back, prostitutes were back, highwaymen were back, and now, to top it all, there were ghosts too. There was certainly never a dull moment around here.

The cadres did their utmost to deflate this talk of ghosts and to educate the masses, summoning her down to the police substation for cross-examination-drawing a crowd of idly curious onlookers in the process. On and on they went, till the policemen's heads throbbed and ran with sweat, but still the case couldn't be settled; finally they had to agree to take her to Maqiao for further investigation. Even if she could recognize her son from a past life, surely she couldn't recognize other people from a past life? If she couldn't recognize them, then that would put an end to her corrupting claptrap, and about time, too.

Six people went: in addition to Hei Danzi, two policemen, a vice-director from the municipal committee, and two meddlesome cadres who tagged along. When they were still a good distance away from Maqiao, they got out of the car and made Hei Danzi go in front, leading the way, to see whether she truly remembered the scenery of her past life. The girl said that she only vaguely, approximately remembered this past life, and she might go the wrong way. But looking around her after each stretch she walked, she made straight for Maqiao, with a directness that made the people trailing behind break out in goose-pimples.

When her path took her across a stone quarry in the mountains, she suddenly stopped and cried a while. The stone quarry was by now abandoned: a few lumps of dried-up ox dung lay on the fragments of rubble all over the ground; puffy clumps of wild grass poked out that would perhaps, before too long, inundate the rubble. When the cadres asked her why she was crying, she said her husband in her previous life had been a stonemason, had cut stone here. The cadres, who'd made some inquiries in advance, secretly rejoiced, knowing this to be completely untrue.

After entering Maqiao she hesitated a little, saying that there hadn't been this many houses before, she couldn't recognize much of it.

The vice-director was delighted. "Had enough, eh? Don't want to play any more, eh?"

One of the policemen didn't agree with the vice-director and was unwilling to start back to the office: seeing as they'd got there, why not let her keep trying-they weren't going to get anything else done today in any case.

The vice-director thought for a moment, looked up at the sky, and didn't put up any opposition.

It was at this point that the person telling me the story started to get carried away-this, he said, was when things really took a turn for the weird. He said that as soon as she stepped into Benyi's house, Hei Danzi seemed possessed by some spirit: not only did she know the way there and the door, but also where the kettle was kept, the piss bucket, the rice cupboard, everything; she also knew at one glance that the semiprostrate old man on the bed was Benyi. Her tears immediately welled up, and she fell to the ground in obeisance, crying out brother Benyi's name, sobbing away. Even deafer than before, Benyi widened his eyes with a great effort and was utterly bemused to see the room full of strange faces. His bemusement only lessened slightly when his second wife came back from the vegetable garden and roared a few sentences at him. It was just too much for him to take, this little girl, still wet behind the ears, standing before him, and his eyes bulged up as big as copper coins: "If you want money, ask for money, you want food, ask for food, just what kind of ghost are you? She's not even grown-up, how can she be a ghost?"

Terrified into tears, Hei Danzi was hustled outside.

A lot of villagers came to inspect this bizarre novelty, to pick over Hei Danzi's appearance, thinking back to what Tiexiang had been like, subjecting every part of her to comparison. The majority conclusion was: how could this possibly be Tiexiang? Tiexiang had been bewitching, dazzling-what kind of a pickled cabbage dumpling was this? On and on they went, until Hei Danzi, squatting on the stepped eaves, weeping and warbling, suddenly raised her head and asked an unexpected question:

"What about Xiuqin?"

The Maqiao people squinted at each other-this was an unfamiliar-sounding name.

"What about Xiuqin?"

One after another they shook their heads, mystification shining from their eyes.

"Is Xiuqin dead?"

The little girl was once more on the verge of tears.

An old man suddenly remembered something: yes, yes, yes, he said, I think there's a Xiu-something-Qin, she's from Benyi's same-pot brother, Benren's, family. Benren had fled to Jiangxi many years ago and had never come back, Xiuqin had married into Duoshun's family, she was the third wife now, yes, she was still alive.